Women should be assigned seats in the UAE workforce, according to the chief innovation officer at the UAE Space Agency, Sheikha Al Maskari.

Speaking to Arabian Business at an exclusive Women’s Day roundtable, Al Maskari was referring to claims that females rely too much on government offers.

“I think we shouldn’t be assigning seats at a later stage. We need to start assigning seats at first because… the fact is, there are a lot of males who resist women’s presence in certain places. So we need to start… and then somewhere down the line, change that,” Al Maskari said.

She raised the example of the Federal National Council, which appointed a female chairperson despite initially not including females.

Al Maskari added that females are only given job opportunities if they prove to have the right qualifications.

“I must say that females will not be assigned seats unless they show potential and they show ability of being capable of doing the job,” she said.

Last year, the UAE’s space industry recorded the highest number of women employed in the sector in the world at 40% compared to an average 12% in other countries. The team at the UAE Space Agency alone comprises 46% females.

“I’m not sure if that was intentional, but we actually do try to get females on board with us. I’m really proud to say we have a lot of female engineers who are working on the spacecraft we are sending to Mars,” she said.